Airhive acquires Carbyon to create Anglo-Dutch direct air capture company
British direct air capture developer Airhive has acquired its Dutch counterpart Carbyon, combining two of Europe’s most prominent early-stage carbon removal technology companies in one of the first significant consolidation deals in the direct air capture (DAC) sector.
The transaction was announced jointly by the two companies in London and Eindhoven. The combined business will operate across both countries under the Airhive name, integrating teams in London and Eindhoven, with early-stage research and development centred at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven in the Netherlands. There, the enlarged company will develop Airhive’s next-generation capture system, known as Cascade, which targets further reductions in the cost of removing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The companies said the merger brings together two different but complementary approaches to solid-sorbent direct air capture, in which reactive minerals capture CO2 within closed, monitored and highly engineered systems. Airhive has developed a capture method built around fluidised beds, a technique adapted from the food and pharmaceutical industries, which it says accelerates the rate of capture, while heat recovery and modular system design contribute to lower costs. Carbyon, founded in Eindhoven by Hans de Neve in 2019, has developed a patented, ultra-fast capturing material designed to significantly increase capture capacity, underpinning its claim to operate some of the fastest capture cycles in the industry. Carbyon previously raised venture funding including a €15.3 million Series A round in 2024.
In a statement accompanying the announcement, Airhive said recent oscillations in the carbon removal market have underlined the case for consolidation. The deal comes at a time when demand signals and policy support for engineered carbon removal have become less predictable, even as leading developers approach commercial deployment, and follows a period in which hundreds of carbon removal start-ups have been competing for a limited pool of corporate offtake commitments and early-stage capital.
Airhive sells carbon credits linked to direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) as well as captured CO2 for industrial utilisation. The company is a co-developer of the three-company UnionDAC consortium announced in June 2026, and is working with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners on a pilot to supply low-carbon, food-grade CO2 for bottling operations, reflecting a broadening of commercial models beyond credit sales alone.
The combination is also timed to align with strengthening European policy support for engineered removals. Direct air capture with storage is one of the three permanent removal pathways covered by the first certification methodologies adopted under the European Union’s Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming Regulation in February 2026, allowing DAC projects to seek EU-level certification. In the United Kingdom, the UK ETS Authority has confirmed plans to integrate engineered greenhouse gas removals, including direct air capture, into the UK Emissions Trading Scheme, with legislation targeted for completion by the end of 2028 and operational integration by the end of 2029. Both developments are expected to open compliance-linked demand for the type of durable removal credits the merged company intends to supply.
The companies said the combined organisation will hold deeper technological and operational expertise and a strengthened position for deploying low-cost direct air capture at the scale required to mitigate climate change. Consolidation among venture-backed DAC developers has long been anticipated by market observers, given the capital intensity of the technology, the long lead times to commercial plants, and the concentration of purchase commitments among a small group of large corporate buyers. The Airhive–Carbyon combination represents one of the first completed examples of that trend among European developers.
